Regardless of how long the ­current ­incumbent has been in the job, chairmen would be ­negligent not to consider them.

Andrew Powell

Slowly, slowly: Rodgers will be given time at Liverpool

One of the sloppiest clichés to streak through ­comment on the game is that ­managers need time. That the example of Sir Alex Ferguson’s ­longevity is the ONLY way forward for a club. It is nonsense.

Including caretakers, Chelsea have had eight managers in eight years.

During that time, the club has won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups and a Champions League. It has ­finished as runners-up in the Premier League three times and once in the Champions League.

Yes, there is value in long-term faith. Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and David Moyes prove that.

But it is not the only means to a successful end.

No-one could deny Sunderland’s sacking of Steve Bruce in November 2011 was harsh and early in the season. But, on the balance of probability, it was a decision that preserved the club’s Premier League status.

When Nigel Adkins’ ­position at Southampton is debated, the overwhelming response is one of indignation bordering on outrage.

The man who has led the team to successive promotions has to be given a fair crack of the whip – it’s the least he deserves.

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Vulnerable: Adkins has gotten off to a poor start

Yet if the St Mary’s board ­arrive at the conclusion that there is someone out there – and I’m not necessarily talking Redknapp – who has a far better chance of keeping the club in the ­Premier League then it has every right to make the change. Loyalty is overrated. If Adkins makes the sort of impact Rodgers made at Swansea, he would leave if a bigger club came calling.

Just like Rodgers did.

As likeable as Owen Coyle is, it is impossible to sympathise with him a couple of years after he walked out of Burnley.

The League Managers Association has been brilliantly transformed into a powerful, influential organisation by Richard Bevan.

But it has plenty of members who tout for other members’ jobs.

One chairman tells a tale of being approached in stadium car parks by an out-of-work manager when the club were not even ­considering a change.

We all know it is rife. Redknapp, of course, does not need to tout for someone else’s job.

But the world football lives in means he will ­offered one sooner rather than later.

And whoever makes way for him will just have to live with it. Because when it comes to ruthlessness, chairmen and managers are twinned.

Do Suarez a favour...and punish him

Clive Brunskill

Theatrics: Suarez goes down easily again

Someone, somewhere, please do Luis Suarez a favour. When even Tony Pulis, a manager who, allegedly, leapt naked from the shower to nut his striker, can get away with criticising the behaviour of an ­opposition player, then it is time for remedial action. But Pulis was right to denounce the Suarez dramatics. Excuses about Suarez being targeted (he clearly was against Stoke) are lame.

For his own sake, Suarez has to be punished. Then he might realise the travesty of what is happening right now. Suarez has the potential to make the same sort of impact as a Gianfranco Zola. He is that good. But his quality is being camouflaged by the controversy that accompanies every dive.

Wonga is laughing all the way to the bank

Any sensible debate on the morality of ­commercialism in sport has long been rendered irrelevant.

Even the Olympic Games – an event held up as all that is noble in sport – has McDonald’s as one of its main partners.

And if you wanted to pick holes in the ethics of football sponsors, you would not know where to start... although right at the top, in the title of the self-proclaimed best league in the world, might be a start.

What I do know is that, sadly, whatever fee this company is paying Mike Ashley has already proved to be money well spent.

A business such as this one does not deserve the torrent of publicity it has had over this past week.

Rugby players have more balls than feigning footballers

Clive Brunskill / Getty

Down and out: Balotelli has a low pain threshold

It is an easy, unjust, ­spurious to the point of ­irrelevant contrast to make. Just like the ­Olympians versus footballers juxtaposition.

But I’m going to make it all the same.

A few hours after watching Mario Balotelli writhe around in faux agony – and just down the road at Old Trafford – I saw Warrington Wolves prop Paul Wood play for 20 minutes with a ­ruptured testicle, which later had to be removed.

He had not wanted to be subbed and was prepared to go back on to help his team. Rugby has just as many faults as football, but thankfully, feigning injury is not one of them.

Armstrong is a dope for cheating himself

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Jaw dropping: Armstrong's drug cheating has been exposed

Dave Brailsford described it as ‘jaw-dropping’... and he didn’t even come close to doing justice to the USADA report on Lance Armstrong. But you know what one of the mystifying things about the whole saga is? It still hurt. At the end of a 14km climb up the Alpe D’Huez, the legs would still have been screaming at the brain.

Armstrong once had the ­courage to cope with that pain without doping.

We know that because he successfully fought cancer. Yet he is portrayed by this report as a man who has gone from the ­extremity of bravery to the extremity of ­cowardice. Armstrong has cheated himself.